Wales boss Rob Page has sympathy for Danny Ward’s situation at Leicester
The 30-year-old is third-choice goalkeeper at Leicester and has not played for the Foxes in over 12 months.
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Wales boss Rob Page has defended Danny Ward and blamed “politics” for the out-of-favour Leicester goalkeeper not moving in the January transfer window.
Ward, Wales’ number one, has not played for Leicester in over 12 months and finds himself third-choice goalkeeper at the Championship promotion-chasers.
Page urged several Wales players to change clubs in January in order to play more ahead of the Euro 2024 play-offs, which starts with a semi-final against Finland in Cardiff on Thursday.
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“I’ve spoken to Danny and it wasn’t a case of him not listening to my advice,” said Page.
“When you put your player head on, you get it, I understand it. I have sympathy for Danny.
“When I put my manager head on, no, but with my player head on, of course I understand.
“When politics are involved and you’ve got a length of time left on your contract, it is not as easy as just getting out and playing games of football.
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Ward has rarely made the Leicester bench under Enzo Maresca this season with first-choice Mads Hermansen and Jakub Stolarczyk ahead of the 30-year-old.
The 38-times capped Ward has had to settle for trying to gain match sharpness by playing for Leicester’s under-23s.
“He has played in a couple of under-23 games,” said Page. “He said he was going to do that and he has done, I think he’s played three or four.
“It’s not the level, we know that, but at least he’s made some effort to go and play games.
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“The positives are that the majority of our squad are out playing football and playing well.”
Wales’ goalkeeping issue is reflected by not one of their four senior goalkeepers – Ward, Wayne Hennessey, Adam Davies and Tom King – having played one minute of league football all season.
By contrast, Finland goalkeeper Lukas Hradecky has had a fantastic campaign and not lost a single game while wearing the armband for Xabi Alonso’s Bundesliga leaders Bayer Leverkusen.
Page said: “We’ve done a load of analysis on him over the last three or four weeks.
“He’s probably one of the stand-out high-profile players for them.”